Winners of a number of
awards, the sisters Mona and Rica Bard now present their first CD,
a pas de deux though 80 years of French piano music. At one and at
two instruments, they create a panorama of piano sound, ranging
from the simulation of orchestral colours, percussive and motoric
élan to the suggestion of an intensive song-like quality.
With Bizet‘s Jeux d’enfants, Ravel‘s Rapsodie
espagnole and Poulenc‘s Sonata for Two Pianos, this SACD
contains three 'secret' masterworks by their respective composers.
With its combination of elegance, irony and samba rhythms, the
Scaramouche Suite quickly became Darius Milhaud‘s most
popular work.

Four hands, two sisters, one
pulse – Mona & Rica Bard have won national and
international awards at competitons; among them the German Music
Competition, the Concorso Internazionale di Musica da Camera Palma
d`Oro (Finale Ligure) and the Concorso Internazionale per Duo
Pianistico Twenty Fingers (Rome). The Ensemble was accepted in the
National Selection of Young Artists’ Concerts of the German
Music Council and in the artists’ list of the association
Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now.

Extensive concert engagements
have taken Mona & Rica Bard throughout Europe, to Asia the USA
and to numerous festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the NCPA May
Festival Peking and the Chicago Piano Duo Festival.